[DoctorIrokezov]

Now, the poor-old Americans always seem to get a bashing when it comes to world geograhy and it was discovered lately that a fifth of them can't locate their country on a world map.
There is even a popular video on YouTube, taken from some Australian comedy show, which tries to prove how naive they are about the rest of the world. Just type in the word 'Stupid', on YouTube's search engine and it comes out tops.

None of that American bashing here though, as it is of course a Thailand based forum, but just cause you don't know the location of your country, does that make you daft?

Getting the inspiration from this survey done above, i decided last night to try it out on 7 Thai friends of mine, six of whom have a university degree - including one who is a wanna-be politician and another who is my very own wife!

So, i got out my photocopy of a world map and asked them to pin-point Thailand on a world map. Not one of the seven knew quickly and exactly where Thailand was. They had to hunt around for 5 minutes. And, im not joking!

A couple of them had absolutely no idea and i could see them searching around the likes of South America and even Europe.

So, what does that say about the standard of geography classes in the Thai education system?

Or, is it only because of my European conditioning that we are taught that you really must know where on a world map your country is?

[SOgLak]

Some truths are self-evident. And one self-evident truth is that EVERYONE should be able to pinpoint their own country on a world map in 5 seconds flat!!

[Fvmfrctt]

Quite true about american ignorance. It's stunning that so many americans are cluless on issues of the map. Americans want to believe. They actually believe the bull on ads that say low rates for this or that. Benovlence..A kind of trust in the word. And yet, where did it all start? Why, the influence of the brits of course.

[ireleda]

Pobly one reason that some Americans are quite ignorant about world geography is that most do not want to leave there, they have every kind of climate, topography, and weather conditions that you will find in every other country in the world.
They have high country, dry country, cold, hot wet, dry, humid, tropical and desert, glacerial and sand, 2 oceans come ashore there and some of the larger fresh water lakes, large rivers and most kinds of fish and wildlife that can be found anywhere, so why get a passport and leave,
they have a large Thai, Chinese, European, you name it, and they have em there populations, and kind of food in the world is available there just a short walk or drive from home.
My wife is a school teacher and has been for 25 years here with a Uni education and she does not know where anythng is on a world map, and I, a stupid American with an 8th grade edu have to tell her and eventually go to the map and put my finger on it for her.
But I am different than most Americans, I have to see where you live, what you eat and where you work, then I have to go look at what some one else is doing.
I am what is known in America as "Fiddlefooted". and as such am now a citizen of the world.

[SOgLak]

FiP wrote:

".......they have every kind of climate, topography, and weather conditions that you will find in every other country in the world. They have high country, dry country, cold, hot wet, dry, humid, tropical and desert, glacial and sand, 2 oceans come ashore there and some of the larger fresh water lakes, large rivers and most kinds of fish and wildlife......."


So have we (all of the above).

[Wr8dIAUk]

Steve, I was channel hopping the other day (night), and there are a couple of channels that broadcast stupid educational programs at night, like a Thai analysing English sentence structures in Thai, or solving equations. now, this one was a geography lesson. the date in the corner said November, 2549 - ok, a rerun. a voice was talking about the map map of Europe, the countries and the rivers and lakes in particular. BUT it was a pre-1990 map, complete with Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and two Germany's. the voice said "and this is the Soviet Union" and there was a chorus of students voices repeating.

my only hope is that I misunderstood and it was actually a history class about post-WW2 Europe


I will try this "place Thailand" test with my colleagues

[rusculture]

I am stunned-and some what elated. I can find many countries on a blank map-I do it by overall shape-so whereas I could easily point out Europe ,USA, India, Burma Cambodia Vietnam and Thailand on a map, I would find it hard to pinpoint Bosnia or Slovakia -and probably Germany as well.

[provigil]

I have seen that clip Steve, and I agree with your post. When I first seen that clip I said to the person standing next to me 'Anyone can do those same interviews in any country in the world and once it is edited can have just as many dumb replies and clueless people'.

With enough searching one can find any group of people. With enough editing one can make a great video (and funny one at that). With enough imagination one can make a statistic say anything they like. To be honest I don't know anyone that naive, so I seriously doubt that the 1 in 5 number could in anyway be accurate. However in some parts of the country I am sure it could be possible. Really that would be unfair to use and twist statistics like that would it not?

Would it really be fair to interview 100 poor rice farmers from Udon Thani then publish a report saying that 98% of Thai people have never even heard of the internet? Or that only 25% of Thai people have finished High School? Just not fair use of numbers in my opinion.

[Wr8dIAUk]

try these games here:

http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF

[provigil]

Great link Betti I bookmarked for my kids to use too. Thank you.

Should you edit your post so that it reads: American people click here ? LOL

[Wr8dIAUk]

IgotNoTime, I tried the US, Africa and South America maps and failed miserably. I can sort of tell whereabouts countries and US states are, definitely get the area right, but cannot find the exact spot no problems spotting my own tiny little country though

[rusculture]

Great Fun!!

[ireleda]

NP, it is nice that you can be proud of your country, So have we (all of the above). But lets get real, you really have no desert as such, When I say Desert I mean it, 130*F in the shade, if there was any, no water for many miles unless you have it with you, not much grows, only special cacti.
Your country is not much, if any bigger, that some of the desert areas in North America.
I have lived and worked in some of em, but will never do it again, altho some people would live nowhere else.

Check em out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen...7594356168327/

http://ceres.ca.gov/ceres/calweb/deserts.html

[provigil]

I thought NP was from USA. Here are some more pics of the Mojave Desert. I don't think that it looks anywhere near as comfortable as the flickr pics FiP posted above. The Mojave Desert is about 25,000 square miles and New Zealand is about 100,000 square miles. So that desert spans nearly 25% of New Zealand. There are stretches that can go 300km between fuel ad people.The Mojave Desert on the left and the NZ Desert on the right. The one on the right doesn't look near as scary or desolate to me. That is not complimentary to the US terrain in my eyes.


At the same time I don't think the USA can afford me the beauty of rainforest jungles FiP. Florida may be close but still no cigar, well except Cubans maybe?

[MaigicyuNinia]

Well I find people with degrees have a lack of general knowledge, because they only have the ability and the time to learn about there studies, so if they know nothing about geography, they probably did economics.
The other thing is, The USA is such a great country, it is so huge and has such a diversity of things to see and do, many people who live there don't ever bother to travel out side the country in a life time.

[ireleda]

But they do have some beautiful rain forests in the PNW, they are not tropical but they do have giant trees, some of the largest and tallest trees in the world, giant ferns and wet.
Above Aberdeen WN. is such a rain forest on the Olympic peninsula, and down in Sequoia[Redwoods] national forest is wet and huge trees.
Out at Bishop in the edge of Death Valley Calif. they have the Bristlecone pines that are the oldest living trees on the planet, they predate Jesus Christ by a number of years.
And the Sinora Desert is much larger than Mojave, Death valley is names that for a reason and it is the lowest spot in the states at something like 300 feet below sea level I believe. When you live someplace you tend to pay little attn to it, at least I do.

[esconsise]

The first thing I bought when my wife arrived here in the States was a globe. She is probably better at geography now than most university educated Thais, and I know she speaks better English than most I've met.

[SOgLak]

Actually we do have a desert in the Central Plateau of the North Island. But I admit it is only a small one and vegetation (tussock etc) does still grow there. Our particular claim to fame is that we have huge diversity of landscape for such a small country.

And although Igotnotime's picture of an NZ "desert" is pretty, it sure is not a desert.

[provigil]

HEY VC!!!!!!
My wife has a globe too, she loves it! I am certain she is probably as good with geography as I am. You know one thing my wife likes is those little laptop computers (for school kids) called the leapfrog, she puts in all the cartridges and practices her math and geography all the time for entertainment. She knows all the US State capitals and I only remember about 2/3 of them! LOL

nam_phyyng I was by no means intending to be negative about your country, I think your country has some of the most gorgeous scenery form all the photos I have seen from it in the past. These are not my photos of NZ, they are from the link FiP posted, but they were labeled as NZ Desert Highway on FlickR. Besides your desert looks prettier than mine!

[Mjyzpzph]

Most of my family can't find countries on a map. When I went to Viet Nam some years back my sister thought it was next to America?????

David